Kevin Gleason: Wilson shows kids dreams come true even when it hurts

Tuesday

Aug 5, 2014 at 2:00 AM

The boy wasn't leaving Giants training camp until he got his prized autograph. That added a layer of ambiguity to his dad trying to resolve the odd feeling of watching his boy get autographs from players he interviews on NFL Sundays. So the boy was on his own, dad in the background, waiting in the 80-something degree sun.

Kevin Gleason

The boy wasn't leaving Giants training camp until he got his prized autograph. That added a layer of ambiguity to his dad trying to resolve the odd feeling of watching his boy get autographs from players he interviews on NFL Sundays. So the boy was on his own, dad in the background, waiting in the 80-something degree sun.

My 11-year-old wasn't leaving until he got David Wilson's signature on a spiffy new card he had just bought.

Not sure why Wilson had become one of the boy's favorites. Maybe it was the way I talked up Wilson, but probably because of his style on Madden. I just knew it was getting late and I had to get to work and hundreds of people lined the steel barriers wanting the same autograph. It didn't look like my boy was getting one.

Wilson had lit up the crowd. He smiled and laughed and played up the unified screams for his signature. He faked heading one way, as if deking a D-end, and went the other way, then returned to the previous spot. Running back and defensive back teammates designated to sign were cordial with the crowd. Wilson was electric, just as he could be on the field.

I thought of that scene on Monday when Wilson danced out of the Giants and the NFL after being told, seven weeks following his 24th birthday, that he shouldn't play football anymore. Fresh back from neck surgery in January, Wilson suffered a burner last week. Now he had something called diffuse cervical stenosis. Now he was at risk of "more episodes like last week,'' Giants physician Dr. Russell Warren said, "or perhaps something more serious.''

Nobody needed a definition of "perhaps something more serious.'' Wilson took the doctor's advice and called it quits.

I thought of a couple kids, of dreams starting, dreams ending. I thought of the perch on which kids and adults alike place professional athletes, that all the screaming and begging for signatures seems misplaced. I thought of what possessed all these people to stand hours in a scorching sun awaiting anybody's signature.

And I thought of how a kid is supposed to cope with having his career taken away at 24.

Then I remembered asking Wilson something a few days earlier on the eve of the first practice. Had he ever once given thought to not playing football again? Not at all, Wilson said, "I'm a positive person.''

I didn't believe him. How could Wilson rid his mind of negativity with the team's level of concern and months passing before he was cleared to play?

I believe him now. We found out Wilson's degree of positivity on Monday. It's a credit to himself and to his parents. It's an attitude that we pray our children possess.

Don't pity me, Wilson said on Monday. He said he lived his dream that began as an 8-year-old, same age as some of those autograph seekers. "I was a first-round draft choice of the New York Giants,'' he said. "I scored touchdowns. I caught touchdowns. I returned kicks for touchdowns and I set records.''

Wilson made sure he didn't let anyone go home unhappy that day. He made his way toward my son and the boy held out his David Wilson football card for the bigger kid to sign. Wilson neatly signed his name and smiled. The boy beamed, too nervous to speak.

Maybe that was why kids stand hours in a scorching sun awaiting a player's signature. Not all of them are the bad guys you read about, not even close. Wilson was a hero that day. On Monday, he became a role model.

kgleason@th-record.com;

Twitter: @th_KevinGleason

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